FIDIC Red Book: A Practical Notice and Claims Administration Guide
Under a FIDIC Red Book contract, entitlement to extra time or money often turns on two things: whether the notice went out inside the contractual period, and whether the records exist to prove the event. In the General Conditions of the 2017 edition, a Notice of Claim is due within 28 days of becoming aware of the event and a fully detailed claim within 84 days; the 1999 edition uses 28 and 42 days. This guide shows how to run that process on a live project: a register, a matrix of who sends what by when, the records to keep, and a worked variation.
- Published
- Sources checked
- Reading time
- 14 min
- Written by
- Mirage Metrics team
Scope: the General Conditions of the Red Book 1999 (first edition) and 2017 (second edition, reprinted in 2022 with amendments). Your Particular Conditions may change any period or clause cited here. The guide paraphrases FIDIC's conditions and does not reproduce them; buy the official text from FIDIC. It is not legal advice on a specific contract.
Decision snapshot
- Best suited to
- Contract managers, project managers and document controllers running an international project under a FIDIC Red Book, on either side of the contract.
- Inputs needed
- The signed contract (Contract Data, General and Particular Conditions), the correspondence log, instructions, drawing issues, programme revisions and site records.
- What can be automated
- Collecting correspondence, extracting dates and references into a register, computing the next date from the period you enter, flagging lines with no document issued, assembling record bundles, comparing drawing revisions.
- What requires human approval
- The date you became aware, the route an event follows, whether to send a Notice, its content and signature, the contractual basis and the quantum of any claim, and any Notice of Dissatisfaction.
- When this approach is insufficient
- When the contract is not a Red Book, when the Particular Conditions rewrite Clauses 3, 13 or 20 heavily, when a dispute is already before a DAAB or tribunal, or when the governing law adds requirements. At that stage you need the contract's own text and counsel.
Who this guide is for
It is written for the people who keep a FIDIC project's paper trail alive: the contractor's contract manager and document controller, the employer's project team, and the Engineer's staff who receive and answer the notices. It assumes you already know what a Red Book is (a contract for works designed by the Employer, administered by an Engineer, and paid on measured quantities) and focuses on the daily mechanics.
It is not a bidding guide. If you are pricing a French public works tender, see how to respond to a French construction tender. It is also not a transposition of NEC4, which runs on a different logic (early warnings and compensation events with their own periods); the NEC4 contract administration page covers that family separately.
Which edition governs your contract
Before any date goes into a register, establish three facts from the contract itself: which FIDIC book it is based on, which edition, and what the Particular Conditions change. The 1999 and 2017 Red Books share clause numbers but not procedures, so mixing them is the most common source of wrong deadlines. The 2017 edition was reprinted in 2022 with amendments that FIDIC made effective from 1 January 2023; a contract signed on an earlier print may or may not incorporate them.
| Topic | Red Book 1999 | Red Book 2017 (reprint 2022) |
|---|---|---|
| Notice of a claim | Sub-Clause 20.1: as soon as practicable and no later than 28 days after the Contractor became aware, or should have become aware, of the event | Sub-Clause 20.2.1: within 28 days after the claiming Party became aware, or should have become aware, of the event |
| Who the claim procedure binds | The Contractor's claims; Employer's claims follow a lighter, separate route (Sub-Clause 2.5) | Both Parties, Employer and Contractor, through the same Clause 20 procedure |
| Late notice | Time bar: no extension of time and no additional payment for that event | Time bar, but the Engineer has 14 days to give Notice that the claim was late; if it does not, the Notice of Claim is deemed valid. The claiming Party can argue that lateness was justified in its fully detailed claim |
| Fully detailed claim | Within 42 days after becoming aware of the event | Sub-Clause 20.2.4: within 84 days after becoming aware, or another period agreed. It must contain the contractual or other legal basis; missing that statement is a second time bar |
| Engineer's response | Within 42 days after receiving the fully detailed claim, then a determination under Sub-Clause 3.5 | Sub-Clause 3.7: consultation towards agreement, then a fair determination; 42 days for each step unless otherwise agreed. If no determination of a Claim arrives in time, it is deemed rejected (Sub-Clause 3.7.3) |
| Challenging the outcome | Referral to the Dispute Adjudication Board under Clause 20 | Notice of Dissatisfaction within 28 days after receiving the determination (Sub-Clause 3.7.5), otherwise the determination becomes final and binding |
| Warning of future problems | Contractor-side obligations only | Sub-Clause 8.4, Advance Warning: each Party warns the other and the Engineer of probable future events that could affect the work, the price or the programme |
| Form of a notice | Sub-Clause 1.3: communications in writing | Sub-Clause 1.3: a Notice must be in writing and identified as a Notice; other communications must name the provision they are given under |
Source: [2018] ICLR 384, hosted by FIDIC; Gowling WLG (2024); Freshfields on the 2022 reprints. Periods are those of the General Conditions.
Three checks before you trust a period
- Read the Particular Conditions for any change to Sub-Clauses 1.3, 3.5 or 3.7, 8, 13 and 20. Employers often shorten or lengthen claim periods there.
- Check whether the contract is a development bank edition or a heavily amended form. It will look like a Red Book and behave differently.
- Check how the contract defines a day and when a Notice is treated as received, including the address and method it must be sent by.
One event, from discovery to decision
The sequence below follows the 2017 General Conditions. Each step names the sub-clause so you can check it against your own contract; the 1999 differences are noted after the list.
- Discovery. Someone on site, in design or in the commercial team notices an event: an instruction, a late drawing, ground conditions, a suspension. The date and the evidence of that moment go into the register the same day, because the 28 days run from when you became aware or should have.
- Advance warning. If the problem is still in the future, Sub-Clause 8.4 asks each Party to warn the other and the Engineer of probable events that could affect the work, the price or the programme. A warning is not a Notice of Claim and does not replace one.
- Route decision. Is it a Variation instructed under Clause 13, a disagreement with an instruction under Sub-Clause 3.5, or an event that gives rise to a Claim under Clause 20? The route sets the documents and dates. When the answer is unclear, diarise both.
- Notice of Claim. For the Clause 20 route, a Notice identified as such, describing the event, goes to the Engineer within 28 days (Sub-Clause 20.2.1).
- Contemporary records. From that point the claiming Party keeps the records needed to substantiate the claim, and the Engineer may inspect them or instruct additional ones (Sub-Clause 20.2.3).
- Engineer's check on timing. If the Engineer considers the Notice late, it has 14 days to say so by Notice. Silence makes the Notice of Claim deemed valid; the other Party can still dispute that.
- Fully detailed claim. Within 84 days of awareness, or another agreed period: a description, the contractual or other legal basis, the contemporary records relied on, and the particulars of time and money (Sub-Clause 20.2.4). If the basis statement is missing, the claim lapses.
- Continuing events. If the effect continues, the first fully detailed claim is treated as interim, updated monthly, and followed by a final fully detailed claim within 28 days after the effects end (Sub-Clause 20.2.6).
- Agreement or determination. The Engineer consults the Parties towards agreement and, failing that, makes a fair determination, each step within 42 days unless otherwise agreed (Sub-Clause 3.7).
- Dissatisfaction. A Party that disagrees gives a Notice of Dissatisfaction within 28 days of receiving the determination (Sub-Clause 3.7.5). Without it, the determination becomes final and binding. The dispute then goes to the Dispute Avoidance/Adjudication Board under Clause 21.
Under the 1999 edition the shape is similar but lighter: the Contractor's notice is due within 28 days, the fully detailed claim within 42 days, and the Engineer responds within 42 days of receiving it, with determinations under Sub-Clause 3.5. There is no 14-day late-notice mechanism, and Employer's claims follow Sub-Clause 2.5 rather than the same procedure.
The notice register
A notice register is a single list of every event that could lead to a Notice, with its route, its dates and its documents. Spreadsheet or database, the format matters less than three rules: one line per event, fixed status values, and a named owner. The example values below belong to the worked example later in this guide.
| Field | Example value | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Register ID | N-0042 | Your own sequential reference. Never reuse a number, even for a withdrawn notice. |
| Contract and edition | Red Book 2017, reprint 2022, PC amended | Copied from the Contract Data, not from memory. Any Particular Condition touching Clauses 1.3, 3.7, 13 or 20 is noted here. |
| Event | Culvert C3 relocated by instruction EI-017 | One event per line. A second consequence of the same event is a new line linked to this one. |
| Date aware (or should have been) | 2026-03-02 | The date the time limit runs from. Record who knew, and the document that proves it. |
| Route | 13.3.1 Variation | Which procedure the event follows: 13.3.1 Variation, 3.5 disagreement or 20.2 Claim. When unsure, record both routes and both deadlines. |
| Next contractual date | 2026-03-30 | Computed from the date aware and the period in your contract, then checked by a second person. |
| Owner | Contract manager, site package B | A named person, not a department. |
| Documents issued | CTR-L-0107 acknowledging EI-017, sent 2026-03-03 | Reference, date, method of delivery, recipient address as the contract defines it. |
| Documents received | Engineer's acknowledgement ENG-C-0311 | Includes any Engineer's Notice that the claim was late. |
| Status | Particulars in preparation | One of a fixed list (see the matrix below), never free text. |
Two habits make the register trustworthy. First, a second person checks every computed date against the contract, because a period copied from a previous project is the classic error. Second, the register is reviewed at a fixed weekly slot, line by line, even when nothing seems to be happening: a line with a date inside the next ten days and no draft document is the line that goes wrong.
The event matrix: event, document, date, owner, status
The register lists events as they happen. The matrix is the reference card behind it: for each type of event, which document it calls for, how the date is computed, who owns it and what status it starts in. Build it once at contract start, from your own contract, and pin it next to the register.
| Event | Document to issue | Date | Owner | Starting status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Engineer's instruction changes the works | Instruction, drawings, Contractor's detailed particulars (13.3.1) | 28 days from receiving the instruction, unless the contract says otherwise | Contract manager, with planner and estimator | Particulars due |
| Instruction received that is not called a Variation | Contractor's Notice under 3.5, before starting the work | Promptly, and before the work starts | Contract manager | Decision needed |
| Unforeseeable ground conditions found | Notice of Claim (20.2.1), then site records, then fully detailed claim (20.2.4) | 28 days, then 84 days, from the date aware | Site manager raises, contract manager issues | Notice due |
| Late drawings from the Engineer | Advance Warning (8.4) if foreseen, Notice of Claim if delay occurs | Warning as soon as the risk is known; claim within 28 days of awareness | Planner raises, contract manager issues | Notice sent |
| Engineer gives Notice that a claim was late | Reasons why lateness was justified, inside the fully detailed claim | With the fully detailed claim (84 days from awareness) | Contract manager, with counsel if the value justifies it | Challenge required |
| Engineer's determination received | Notice of Dissatisfaction (3.7.5) if you disagree | 28 days from receiving the determination | Commercial director | Decision needed |
Keep the status list short and closed: Logged, Notice due, Notice sent, Particulars due, Submitted, Awaiting Engineer, Determined, Dissatisfaction notified, Closed. Orange in the table marks a line waiting on a person; red marks a line where the other side has already challenged your position.
Records to keep from day one
Both editions make contemporary records the evidence base of a claim, and the 2017 edition lets the Engineer inspect them and instruct you to keep more. Records made at the time carry weight that reconstructions made months later do not. The practical rule: if a record would help prove the event, its date or its cost, it is filed against the register line the day it is created.
| Family | Examples | What it proves |
|---|---|---|
| Correspondence | Letters, Notices, emails with the Engineer, transmittals, delivery receipts | Proves what was said, when, and that it reached the address the contract names |
| Instructions and drawings | Engineer's instructions, drawing issues and revisions, RFIs and their answers | Proves what changed and when you were told |
| Progress | Daily site diaries, monthly progress reports, programme revisions, photographs with dates | Links the event to its effect on the work |
| Resources | Labour and plant allocation sheets, timesheets, equipment logs, idle time | The basis for any cost or time quantum |
| Cost | Invoices, purchase orders, subcontractor accounts, cost reports coded to the event | Separates the event's cost from normal cost |
| Meetings | Minutes, action lists, comments on the minutes | Shows who knew what, which can matter for awareness and prejudice |
File by register ID as well as by date. When the fully detailed claim is due, the bundle for that line should already exist, instead of being rebuilt from mailboxes.
Worked example: an instructed variation
Illustrative example, invented figures: relocating a culvert on a road project
Assumptions, all invented for this example. The contract is a Red Book 2017, reprint 2022. The Particular Conditions do not change Clauses 1.3, 3.7, 13 or 20. The instruction is stated to be a Variation under Sub-Clause 13.3.1, and the contract keeps the General Conditions' 28 days for the Contractor's detailed particulars. Days are counted as calendar days from receipt of the instruction.
| Day | What happens | Register action | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Day 0 | Engineer's instruction EI-017 relocates culvert C3 by 40 m, stated to be a Variation | Register line N-0042 opened, route 13.3.1, owner assigned | Logged |
| Day 1 | Planner checks the programme: the new position crosses an access road used by two other crews | Second line N-0043 opened for the access impact, linked to N-0042 | Logged |
| Day 3 | Site diary and photographs start recording the affected area daily | Records referenced in N-0042 and N-0043 | Recording |
| Day 10 | Estimator prices the new culvert position; planner models 6 working days of delay to package B | Draft particulars: description, programme proposal, price adjustment | Draft |
| Day 21 | Internal review: contract manager and a second reader check the particulars against the instruction | Two discrepancies corrected (wrong drawing revision cited, missing plant cost) | In review |
| Day 26 | Particulars submitted under 13.3.1, identified as such, to the Engineer's contract address | Delivery receipt filed; next date: Engineer's agreement or determination under 3.7 | Submitted |
| Day 28 | Deadline for particulars under the assumed contract terms | Met with two days of margin | Met |
The fork to watch. Had EI-017 not been stated to be a Variation, the Contractor would have needed to give Notice under Sub-Clause 3.5 before starting the work, and any time or money consequence might then have run through Clause 20 with its own 28 and 84 days. Line N-0043, the access road impact, is the other risk: if the contract manager decides it falls outside what the 13.3.1 particulars cover, it is a separate claim with its own Notice. That is a judgment for the contract manager, and the register's job is to make sure it is taken before day 28, not after.
Mistakes that cost entitlement
- Using the other edition's periods. Forty-two days for a fully detailed claim is right in 1999 and wrong in 2017, and the reverse. Take periods from your contract, never from a colleague's last project.
- A letter that is not identified as a Notice. Under the 2017 edition a Notice must say it is one. A progress report that mentions a problem is not a Notice of Claim.
- Waiting for the full cost before notifying. The notice describes the event; the quantum comes later, in the fully detailed claim.
- Treating an Advance Warning as a Notice of Claim. They are different acts with different consequences.
- Leaving out the legal basis. In the 2017 edition a fully detailed claim without its contractual or legal basis lapses.
- Missing the Notice of Dissatisfaction. Twenty-eight days after a determination, silence makes it final and binding.
- Records kept by person, not by event. The evidence exists, spread across five mailboxes, and cannot be assembled in time.
- Sending to the wrong address. The contract names where and how Notices are delivered; an email to a site engineer may not qualify.
What software can prepare, and what it cannot decide
Most of the effort in notice administration is finding, reading and filing: which letter mentioned the culvert, when the revised drawing arrived, what the diary said that day. That work can be prepared by software that reads correspondence and drawings and keeps the register current. The decisions that create or lose rights cannot.
| Task | Who does it | What stays with a professional |
|---|---|---|
| Find every instruction, letter and drawing issue that mentions an event | Can be prepared by software | Decide whether the event gives an entitlement at all |
| Extract dates, references and senders from correspondence into the register | Can be prepared by software | Decide the date you became aware, which is a judgment, not an extraction |
| Compute the next contractual date from the period and the date entered | Can be prepared by software | Confirm the period, which depends on the edition and the Particular Conditions |
| Flag a register line approaching its date with no document issued | Can be prepared by software | Choose whether to send a Notice, a protective Notice, or nothing |
| Draft a first version of a Notice from a template, citing the source documents | Can be prepared by software, reviewed line by line | Sign and send it: the Notice is the company's act |
| Compare two drawing revisions and list what changed | Can be prepared by software | Assess whether the change is a Variation and value it |
| Assemble the record bundle for a fully detailed claim | Can be prepared by software | Build the contractual and legal basis, and the quantum |
This is the boundary Mirage works to on construction documents. Its agents read correspondence, instructions and revisions, link each extracted date or reference to the page it came from, and flag what needs a person, as on the change order review and plan revision comparison workflows. Mirage has not published a FIDIC deployment; if you want to test the approach, the honest test is a closed event from one of your own projects, where you already know the right answer.
Readiness checklist
Run it at contract start, and again whenever the team or the contract changes.
- Book, edition and print of the conditions identified from the signed contract
- Particular Conditions read for every change to Sub-Clauses 1.3, 3.5, 3.7, 8, 13 and 20
- Periods entered in the event matrix and checked by a second person
- Contractual address and delivery method for Notices recorded, with a tested template that identifies a Notice as such
- Notice register created with fixed status values and a named owner per line
- Weekly register review booked, with the Engineer's correspondence log reconciled against it
- Record families filed by register ID, not only by date or author
- Rule agreed for uncertain routes: both deadlines diarised until the contract manager decides
- Escalation path agreed for determinations: who decides on a Notice of Dissatisfaction, within how many days
- Legal support identified for claims above a value threshold you set
Questions readers ask
Is the 28-day notice period the same in every FIDIC Red Book contract?
No. It is 28 days in the General Conditions of both the 1999 and the 2017 Red Book, but Particular Conditions frequently change it, and a contract can be based on another FIDIC book or on a development bank version with its own amendments. Read the Contract Data and the Particular Conditions before you enter any period in a register.
Does an instructed Variation need a Notice of Claim under the 2017 Red Book?
An instruction stated to be a Variation follows Sub-Clause 13.3.1: the Contractor submits detailed particulars and the Engineer agrees or determines the adjustment under Sub-Clause 3.7. The 2022 reprint lists the matters that go through Sub-Clause 3.7 and excludes them from the definition of a Claim. If the instruction is not stated to be a Variation, or if you claim something beyond what the variation procedure covers, check whether the Clause 20 route applies and diarise its dates.
What counts as the date the 28 days start?
Both editions run the period from when the claiming Party became aware, or should have become aware, of the event or circumstance. That is a factual judgment, so record the evidence for the date you choose: the document, the meeting or the site observation that first revealed the event.
Can a late Notice of Claim still be accepted under the 2017 edition?
The 2017 edition keeps the time bar but gives the Engineer 14 days to give Notice that a claim was late. If the Engineer does not, the Notice of Claim is deemed valid. If it does, the claiming Party can set out why the lateness was justified in its fully detailed claim, and the Engineer considers factors such as prejudice to the other Party. A tribunal is not bound by the Engineer's view on this. Do not plan on lateness being excused.
Is this guide legal advice?
No. It describes how to organise notices, records and deadlines. Whether an event gives a right to time or money under your contract, and under the law that governs it, is a question for your contract manager and, where the value justifies it, for a lawyer who has read the contract.
Sources and scope
Checked on . Scope: General Conditions of the FIDIC Red Book 1999 and 2017 (reprint 2022). FIDIC's contract text is copyright and not reproduced here; the sources are FIDIC-hosted and law-firm commentaries that describe it. Always read your own contract, including its Particular Conditions.
- The New FIDIC Suite 2017: Significant Developments and Key Changes, [2018] ICLR 384, hosted by FIDIC: 2017 claim procedure (20.2.1 to 20.2.5), 14-day late-notice mechanism, 84-day fully detailed claim, second time bar, Notice form under 1.3, Advance Warning (8.4), Notice of Dissatisfaction under 3.7.5
- Gowling WLG, FIDIC: Claims for time under the 1999 / 2017 Red Book (2024): 1999 Sub-Clause 20.1 periods (28 days, 42 days, Engineer's 42 days) and contemporary records
- Freshfields, FIDIC 2022 amendments and reprints: what you need to know: 2022 reprint: matters to be agreed or determined listed in 3.7 and excluded from the definition of a Claim; tightened definition of Dispute; amendments effective 1 January 2023
- Ramskill Martin, A Contractor's Overview of Change Management under the FIDIC Red Book Second Edition 2017: Variation by instruction (13.3.1) and its 28-day particulars, variation by request for proposal (13.3.2), Contractor's Notice under 3.5
- Diales, The claims process under FIDIC 2017 from a contractor's perspective: claims of continuing effect (20.2.6): interim claim, monthly updates, final claim within 28 days after the effects end
- FIDIC, Amendments to the FIDIC Conditions of Contract (2017 Red Book errata): existence and scope of FIDIC's published amendments to the 2017 Red Book
This guide explains contract administration practice for educational purposes. It is not legal advice and does not replace a reading of your contract by a qualified professional.
Related on this site
- Change order review: checking a change against the original scope and contract
- Plan revision comparison: what changed between two drawing issues
- Construction document search: finding every document that mentions an event
- NEC4 contract administration: a different contract family, tracked separately
Test it on a closed event from your own project
Send us the correspondence and drawings for one event you have already settled. We will show you the register lines, dates and source links our agents produce, so you can compare them with what your team found by hand.
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